30″ x 24″ acrylic landscape

Just last week I had the privilege to deliver another painting. It was the traditional landscape – autumn in New England, you know, rippling brook, children playing in the brook, etc. It was nothing shockingly new, but it gave the recipients satisfaction (I hope). For me, there was a personal satisfaction because I drew inspiration from personal experience. Air dried at 55mph When I was a preteen, my mother, her sister and cousins joined me and my sisters at a park for a picnic in summer. We were to go to a small amusement park (Mt Park on Mt Tom) after lunch and were told, “Stay clean and no playing in the brook!” Wouldn’t you know it, just after lunch my cousin had to play in the brook – literally. He fell and got his shorts wet!. The 60’s were a wonderful time to be kids. Grass was real, lawns were meant to play in and leave marks where the base lines were run and dandelions were a minefield for “Make up to mommy” bouquets. Mothers also took events more in stride, too. So my Aunt Joyce told the kids to jump in the car and asked Jackie (probably about 7 yrs old) to take the wet shorts off and leave the undies on. She slapped those shorts over the car’s antenna, secured it with a coupe of pins and we rode proudly to the amusement park watching the shorts flap in the wind. It was a good memory. Years passed and I was saying to my children, “Now remember, don’t get wet!” The words never worked. Jumpers and pant legs always seemed to get wet. Nothing can give an artist inspiration like childhood memories! Kids do the funniest things and sometimes that humor translates perfectly onto the paper or canvas. YOUR HOMEWORK – Call up some of your pleasant and funny memories. Life’s too short to stew only in the present.